John Winston Lennon

by

Joyce Hemsley

Series of Famous British Names:

JOHN WINSTON LENNON
guitarist, singer and songwriter
for The Beatles; also a political
activist and author recognised
as one of the greats of the
twentieth century. He was born
in Liverpool, nineteen-forty and
died December nineteen-eighty
in a New York Hospital, after
being shot at the Dekota by
Mark David Chapman...

John's childhood was spent
with his Aunt at a house called
Mendips in Woolton, Liverpool.
His own mother, Julia, died in
nineteen fifty-eight. Her death
prompted John to write the songs:
"Julia" - "Mother" and
"My Mummy's Dead".

He studied at Liverpool College
of Art - met his first wife,
and mother of Julian; later to
divorce and marry his dear Yoko Ono.
Their son Sean was born later.
Hence the ballad "John and Yoko"
and the inclusion of "Ono" in
his name.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney
were two extremely busy and
popular band members of The Beatles.
The group comprised : John Lennon,
Paul McCartney, George Harrison
and Ringo Starr. The Manager,
Brian Epstein died in 1967, and
a few years after this, The Beatles
split. During Beatle Mania years
our Queen awarded John Lennon
an MBE, this he refused to accept
to prove his respect for the Peace
Movement. John and Ono recorded
"Give Peace a Chance". They held
many bed-ins for peace. Two very
well remembered songs, "Imagine"
and "Strawberry Fields Forever"
have taken their rightful place in
the history of Beatles music.

I have a collection of Beatles
singles. I collected singles for years.
Tonight, I have just found "Working
Class Hero" by Lennon, and "Starting
Over" by Lennon. I have lists of songs
here - cannot mention all of them in
this space, but I hope you will enjoy
the lyrics of a top Beatles' song -
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" :

Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies,
Somebody calls you,you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green
Towering over your head,
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she's gone.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain,
Where rocking horse people eat marshmellow pies,
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers,
That grow so incredibly high.
Newspaper taxis appear on the shore,
Waiting to take you away.
Climb in the back with your head in the clouds
And you're gone.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Picture yourself in a train in a station,
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties,
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstyle
The girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.

Other Beatle songs are too numerous to
mention.

In 1976 John and Yoko Ono were officially
accepted to live in America. And three years
ago, Liverpool renamed their airport
"Liverpool John Lennon Airport" with the
motto "above us only sky" from "Imagine".

Sir Paul McCartney lives on, adding to
his great name and repertoire. This series
is reminding us of great names who are
no more - it is about JOHN LENNON, and we
can say he was a dreamer but not the only
one - no not the only one, but a great one.
Let Me Count The Ways.

NEXT?
Why don't you look at Young and In Love
by: Joyce Hemsley
from: Sunderland, England, UK

To visit all of Joyce Hemsley's poems, click HERE

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